


maybe I'd give you my world

by damerons (noblydonedonnanoble)



Series: Author's Faves [6]
Category: The Way Way Back (2013)
Genre: Gen, implied emotional and physical abuse, references to violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22323991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/damerons
Summary: Owen still viscerally remembered the day he fought his dad.
Relationships: Owen (The Way Way Back) & Duncan (The Way Way Back)
Series: Author's Faves [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788160
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	maybe I'd give you my world

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I'd like to thank my current Sam Rockwell obsession for prompting me to write fic for this random movie from 2013

Owen still viscerally remembered the day he fought his dad.

He remembered the comment that did it, his dad seeing his last high school report card and telling him that he’d “fucked up for good, this time.”

Owen remembered looking from his dad to his mom, on the other side of the room—she was cradling a mug of hot tea and looking at anything except her son or her husband.

Perhaps more than anything, he remembered the blood on his fist after he threw the first punch. He remembered it because he knew his knuckles were bleeding, too, but when he looked down at his fingers, his blood was indistinguishable from his dad’s. And all he could think, in that moment, was that their blood, running together across his skin, was the most he would ever allow himself to have in common with his father.

His dad punched him back seconds later, and they ended up in the emergency room. His dad’s nose was broken, and Owen needed stitches just above his right eye, which was swollen for what felt like months.

When they discharged him, he moved out, and he hadn’t seen his dad since.

Duncan told Owen about Trent, and immediately, Owen pictured that blood running down his fingers as though it was yesterday. He imagined decking the asshole who picked on this fantastic kid who deserved all the love and kindness in the world.

“You gotta go your own way,” Owen told him. Hoping, desperately, that Duncan’s “own way” wouldn’t culminate in a fist fight that destroyed his mother’s coffee table.

Almost immediately after he sent Duncan home, though, the kid was back at Water Wizz, frantic about leaving and desperate to feel the confidence the park had given him, for just a little longer.

Not that Owen would ever say so, but shit, did he love that kid in that moment. He would have given Duncan the world if he had asked.

He asked to try The Pass, and Owen felt like he was giving him the world, in a way.

But then there was Trent.

_“You didn’t deserve to see Duncan do that.”_

Instead, though: “You must be Trent.”

_Owen threw the first punch, knocking that dick straight to the ground._

Instead, though: Trent stepped toward Duncan and Owen just stood in the way.

Shit, the things he would have given to knock out the asshole who’d called a kid a 3.

But Duncan didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve the repercussions and he sure as fuck didn’t deserve to leave the park that day a little more like Owen, not that way.

No, the kid would go his own way, and that meant more than being better than Trent. It meant being better than Owen, too.


End file.
